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Admission, First Step to Recovery

Updated Jan. 4, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

William McGurn's "Take My Congressman—Please" (Main Street, Dec. 28) performs a public service in highlighting the illogic of expecting each congressman to extract for his or her district a disproportionate share of the national treasury.

Like the alcoholic's admission that he has a problem, our collective recognition of the destructive nature of parochial federal spending is an important first step toward recovery. Those who argue, for example, that savings realized by the Senate's rejection of earmarks in the...